"So long as the laws remain such as they are today, employ some discretion: loud opinion forces us to do so; but in privacy and silence let us compensate ourselves for that cruel chastity we are obliged to display in public"
About this Quote
De Sade turns prudence into provocation, offering a conspiratorial wink to anyone living under a regime of surveillance, censorship, and moral theater. The opening concession, "So long as the laws remain such as they are today", reads like obedience, but it’s really a tactical preface: if the state insists on policing desire, then desire will simply learn to move offstage. What follows is a manual for double life, a politics of performance where public virtue is less an ethical commitment than a costume worn to avoid punishment.
The phrase "loud opinion forces us to do so" is a sly diagnosis of social control. It isn’t only the law that compels discretion; it’s the crowd, the chorus of righteous voices that makes vice a spectacle and virtue a mandatory display. De Sade frames this as coercive, not civilizing: "that cruel chastity we are obliged to display in public". Chastity becomes violence, a compulsory self-mutilation demanded by institutions that claim to protect order.
Then comes the payoff: "in privacy and silence let us compensate ourselves". The verb "compensate" is doing heavy, cynical work. It implies a moral economy where repression generates a debt, and private transgression is repayment. The subtext isn’t merely libertine; it’s structural. When society is organized around hypocrisy, secrecy stops being an exception and becomes the operating system. De Sade isn’t asking readers to become better people; he’s inviting them to recognize how easily law manufactures the very clandestine appetites it pretends to eradicate.
The phrase "loud opinion forces us to do so" is a sly diagnosis of social control. It isn’t only the law that compels discretion; it’s the crowd, the chorus of righteous voices that makes vice a spectacle and virtue a mandatory display. De Sade frames this as coercive, not civilizing: "that cruel chastity we are obliged to display in public". Chastity becomes violence, a compulsory self-mutilation demanded by institutions that claim to protect order.
Then comes the payoff: "in privacy and silence let us compensate ourselves". The verb "compensate" is doing heavy, cynical work. It implies a moral economy where repression generates a debt, and private transgression is repayment. The subtext isn’t merely libertine; it’s structural. When society is organized around hypocrisy, secrecy stops being an exception and becomes the operating system. De Sade isn’t asking readers to become better people; he’s inviting them to recognize how easily law manufactures the very clandestine appetites it pretends to eradicate.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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